Friday, April 15, 2022



Did Universities Forgo Nourishment of the Soul for Money?

On the evening of April 14, 1912, Marion Wright of Somerset, England, who was on her way to get married, sang the final hymn in a religious service conducted aboard a steamship headed for New York. It was drawn from John Henry Newman’s poem, “The Pillar of the Cloud.”

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home–
Lead Thou me on!

These words were eerily prescient. Just as Marion finished singing, the Titanic hit an iceberg.

At present, universities are currently sailing through their own “encircling gloom”, and it sometimes seems as if universities are headed for an iceberg of their own.

Can the thoughts of Saint John Henry Newman, dead for more than a century, offer them any navigational advice? On the surface, this may seem a strange question.

Newman’s views on the purity of learning for its own sake are hard to reconcile with the current predicament facing universities. Yet, practically every book written about higher education quotes him. So what is responsible for his longevity?

His famous book, “The Idea of a University,” began with a series of lectures he delivered in Dublin in 1852.

Newman’s belief that universities should eschew practical employment skills troubled parents who worried about how their children would support themselves.

He attacked the utilitarian view of education, which values a university for its practical products—work-ready graduates, scientific discoveries, and ideas for new businesses. He did not deny that these things were valuable, but he saw them as secondary.

For Newman, the real purpose of a university was to develop “gentlemen” who “raise the intellectual tone of society” (women were not part of his vision).

His new university would abjure practical learning, banish research to special institutes and allow the Catholic religion to infuse the teaching of all subjects.

Today’s academics share few, if any, of Newman’s values. For example, they do not see religion as central to teaching, they would never banish professional courses, and they are firm in their belief that research is vital to a university. Yet, academics continue to turn to Newman for advice about the mission and practice of higher education in the 21st century.

Liberal Education in the Age of Money
We live in an age in which we measure everything in dollars and cents, including higher education. Want to make a good living? Have you considered our course on golf course management? How about surfing science? Interested in a trendy profession? No problem! Universities chase every fad.

Newman was one of the first to see the way things were going:

“[Some great men] argue as if everything, as well as every person, had its price; and that where there has been a great outlay, they have a right to expect a return in kind … With a fundamental principle of this nature, they very naturally go on to ask, what there is to show for the expense of a university; what is the actual worth in the market of the article called ‘a Liberal Education,’ on the supposition that it does not teach us definitely how to advance our manufactures, or to improve our lands, or to better our civil economy.”

But not even Newman could have guessed just how far such thinking would go. Once justified by a desire to understand our world and our place in it, we now judge scientific research by its commercial “impact.”

The arts and humanities used to be about the growth of the human spirit. In the age of money, they have become business plans for “creative industries,” judged by the size of the profits they produce

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Maths curriculum at Durham University to be 'decolonised'

A new guide has urged professors at Durham University to make their maths curriculum 'more inclusive' and to consider the 'cultural origins' of concepts they teach, it has emerged.

The prestigious institution, ranked seventh in the UK for their maths curriculum, asked academics to question themselves if they are citing 'mostly white or male' mathematicians in a bid to 'decolonise' the syllabus and make the topic 'more open'.

All staff have been asked to 'consider giving short biographies' of the research they will be citing within the module to ensure the subject 'can be used to assist in trying to achieve equality'.

The guide says that if mathematicians are 'almost completely (or even completely) white and/or male, ask yourself why they are. See if you can find contributions to the field from mathematicians of other genders/ethnicities'.

According to The Telegraph, Durham University scientists were asked to investigate how the 'power of 10, represented by the word "billion", 'differs from country to country', and how ancient Indian astronomer Brahmagupta 'assigned a different meaning to the value of zero.'

On their website, the university said decolonising the mathematical curriculum 'means considering the cultural origins of the mathematical concepts, focuses, and notation we most commonly use.'

Professors were also asked to 'consider whether you can present the context outside of a Western frame of reference' when using examples to explain puzzles.

The guide uses an example of Simpson’s paradox, which is illustrated by two examples from the western world - survivors of the Titanic and enrolment in an American University. It says the statistical module could also be explained using the under-representation of Maori in New Zealand jury pools 'to discuss how maths can be used to aid attempts to secure equality'.

The institution added: 'It involves ensuring the global project to expand our understanding of mathematics genuinely global, and frankly assessing the discipline’s failures – past and present – to work toward that aim.

'The question of whether we have allowed western mathematicians to dominate in our discipline is no less relevant than whether we have allowed western authors to dominate the field of literature.

'It may even be important, if only because mathematics is rather more central to the advancement of science than is literature'.

It comes as the university has said it will undertake a review into its policies for inviting external speakers, following a dramatic row in the aftermath of students walking out of an after-dinner speech by columnist Rod Liddle's in December.

But protesters said the university is seeking a 'systemic cover-up' of the controversy, following comments Mr Liddle reportedly made, arguing it has failed to support marginalised students throughout.

At the time, South College principal Professor Tim Luckhurst was criticised for yelling 'pathetic' as students left the talk, even though most were unaware that Mr Liddle would be speaking when they chose to attend.

He stepped back from his duties, but has since resumed them at the start of the academic term

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“Critical Math” Doesn’t Add Up

Abstract

All too often in K-12 classrooms, we find Che Guevara as an icon in progressive teaching of math, claims of the supposed evil of Mercator-projection maps on the wall, and students being taught time-consuming Mayan math.

Most people think that mathematics is a nonideological discipline. They think of it as an objective discipline that is socially and politically neutral and independent of the society in which it is studied. But the promoters of “critical math” in the United States do not think so—they see math as an ideological battlefield—and they are increasingly influential in schools of education and public K–12 classrooms.

Critiques of mathematics by racial justice activists and ethnomathematicians have little to do with actual mathematics or mathematical learning and everything to do with undermining the discipline of mathematics in the name of social justice and racial equity and combating an ideologically conceived “white privilege.” One can find nary a real mathematician or scientist who supports this doctrine of “critical” or “equity-based” math. It is instead supported by professors in teacher-training programs and by identity-politics activists from various social disciplines.

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My other blogs: Main ones below

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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